TT Post about Delayed Leaf Collection - Jan 8, 2019

When is the city going to pick up the leaves piled along our curbs? No weather issues, such as snowstorms, occurred in December to slow down the collection.

Last night, I checked the city's Leaf Collection Interactive Map, and it showed the streets in our area as complete. ???

The second pass schedule (PDF file), however, showed that the start date for our second pass is scheduled to be January 28. !!! The title of that second pass file is "2018 Leaf Collection Second Pass Schedule". 2018?

Something has gone awry. Some areas of Toledo have their second pass scheduled to start in late February with the estimated scheduled end date being March 11.

Did equipment break down? Normally, our second pass occurs in early to mid-December. If this past December had been smothered with snowstorms, then I can understand a delayed schedule.

If we only have normal winter weather in January and February, the leaves won't get collected until spring. Maybe the city is hoping for snow to let the snowplows grind up and spread the leaves.

Rather than collecting in order of ZIP-code districts, crews from the Toledo Division of Streets, Bridges, and Harbor will use the city’s more compact street-sweeping districts to schedule their work.

“Crews will work together in larger groups this year to complete each map before moving onto the next area,” Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said.

This year, collection has also gotten off to a late start by a leaf drop that had hardly begun by Halloween.

“We didn’t have a choice but to start now,” said Ignazio Messina, a city spokesman. “The weather just changed during the past three to five days, and the majority of leaves fell during that time, so we should now be able to collect more leaves at the start of the program rather than starting before the leaves fell.”

True. The bulk of the leaves fell in a short period of time, approximately in the second week of November. First pass occurred in our area in mid-November. But as usual, many oaks still had leaves to drop.

City streets crews are shifting duties to try to get the citywide leaf pickup back on schedule, but officials said they won’t be able to hit every street before the new year. Crews have picked up leaf piles in just over 45 percent of the city.

But in the previous story, the mayor said that crews would work in larger groups.

She anticipates crews will be working into January to clear all city streets, some of which workers will revisit a second time.

Several city councilmen have been fielding concerns from Toledo residents wondering when their leaves will be cleared and complaining the online collection schedule is difficult to interpret.

No reasons were given for why the city's 2018 leaf collection is scheduled to continue into March 2019. No reasons.

The story mentioned something about curbs and uncurbed streets. Yeah. So? It's been that way every year. Nobody came through and removed our curbs, making it harder to collect leaves.

How can a new scheduling system, collection routine, and larger crews result in such a blunder, especially when December's weather was so nice?

We have had other fall seasons with leaves falling later than normal, but second pass still occurred by mid-December. In the past, early December snowfalls were the main reason for leaf collection delays.

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"When are they going to remove the Christmas decorations downtown?"

"You're unofficially tacky if you don't have them down by the end of the month."

To hell with taking down Christmas decorations. What about leaf collection by the city?

For the uncurbed section of our street, collection is scheduled to start on February 13. In some parts of Toledo, the second pass is scheduled to start on March 11. !!!

Christmas decorations will be down before all the leaves are collected. If we actually experience normal winter weather in January and February, then the leaves may not be collected by tax day.

Maybe the city is hoping for snow, which will allow the snowplows to grind and spread the leaves.

Why is the city severely behind in leaf collecting? Supposedly, the city used larger crews to collect leaves. Leaves have fallen later than normal in other years, but the second pass still occurred in early to mid-December.

In the past if leaf collection got delayed, it was usually caused by early December snowfalls that lingered. That did not occur last month. December's weather was fine.

City streets crews are shifting duties to try to get the citywide leaf pickup back on schedule, but officials said they won’t be able to hit every street before the new year. Crews have picked up leaf piles in just over 45 percent of the city.

She anticipates crews will be working into January to clear all city streets, some of which workers will revisit a second time.

Several city councilmen have been fielding concerns from Toledo residents wondering when their leaves will be cleared and complaining the online collection schedule is difficult to interpret.

The story/city never gave reasons as to why the city's 2018 leaf collection is scheduled to end in March 2019, weather permitting.

The story mentioned something about curbed and uncurbed streets. Yeah, sooo? It's that way every year.

Nobody came through and removed our curbs, making it harder to collect leaves.

If Christmas decorations in February is tacky, then leaves still piled along our streets in February is embarrassing.

Jan 15, 2019 story

Mr. Mikolajczyk said crews are about 75 percent finished collecting leaves throughout the city, and they’re actually ahead of last year’s numbers as far as the volume of leaves collected to date.

He said he expects workers will be able to finish clearing leaves from curbed residential streets on Wednesday. Once that work is complete, that frees up more crews to operate the vacuum trucks that suck up leaves from main roads and uncurbed city streets.

Today is Tuesday. Nobody has started gathering our leaves this week. Our neighborhood is a mess with leaves scattered everywhere due to snow plows moving the leaves.